OzHarvest expands to get young people into hospitality industry

Updated
July 03, 2014 11:06:00

Every month, the charity group Oz Harvest saves around 160 tonnes of food that would otherwise end up in the bin and delivers it to the needy through welfare agencies across the country. But now the organisation has a new goal. It wants to help train young disadvantaged people and get them jobs in the hospitality and food industry.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Each month the charity group Oz Harvest saves around 160 tonnes of food that would otherwise end up in the bin and gives it to the needy.

But now the organisation has a new goal. It wants to help train young disadvantaged people and get them jobs in the hospitality and food industry.

Lindy Kerin reports.

TEACHER: Okay guys, are those coming along?

TEENAGER: Yeah mate.

LINDY KERIN: This group of teenagers is cooking a three course meal. Today they're learning how to make homemade pasta

TEACHER: Beautiful, and it's looking a little bit like a lasagne sheet.

TEENAGER: Yeah ...

LINDY KERIN: It's all part of the Nourish Program, set up by the food rescue group OzHarvest to train young people and help them get work in hospitality.

One of the teachers is Belinda Woollett.

BELINDA WOOLLETT: To help them with the basic skills around how to behave in this environment and giving them a really great stepping stone into the industry and being able to push them into wonderful support groups of training and networking.

TEACHER: Chop the end off...

LINDY KERIN: Among those here today is Alex Flevill from Greenacre in Sydney's south-west. He had a tough start to life.

ALEX FLEVILL: When I was four I lost my parents and little brother through a car crash. Me and my older brother, we survived that. I came out with two broken legs. My brother broke his pelvis and his arm. We spent about six months in hospital and then after that we went and lived with my aunty.

LINDY KERIN: The 16 year old has joined the course because he's interested in cooking but it also gets him out of school.

ALEX FLEVILL: I wanted to do a TAFE course because, just to do something to get out of school. But also I'm rather interested in doing hospitality. Cooking is pretty fun, I reckon. My brother is the main big chef in the family, but I'd like more to work in say a cafe or be a waiter or a barista rather than a big chef.

LINDY KERIN: Why is that?

ALEX FLEVILL: I like cooking, it's just, I'm more of the person who enjoys eating it more than making it.

ALEX FLEVILL: I didn't know exactly what kind of steps had to go in preparing certain meals. Like last time I was here we did lemon baste and herbed chicken. I never really knew how exactly to stuff a chicken, so that was really weird and new for me. I didn't know I had the ability to make something that delicious.

TEACHER: And you survived the brussel sprouts a couple of weeks ago, right. And they were okay? Were they nice? Oh, they were nice, oh good.

LINDY KERIN: Seventeen year old David Devoe from Guilford in Sydney's west has just spent seven months in juvenile detention.

DAVID DEVOE: Yeah, I got in trouble a bit. I got locked up. I tried to go back to enrol, back to Merrylands High, and they didn't accept me and they told me to go to the school down the road from them, which is Youth off the Streets.

LINDY KERIN: He says he wants to do this course to be more help at home.

DAVID DEVOE: They teach us like heaps of stuff over here like how to chop onions and that, like do different, chop heaps of kind of vegies, like I don't know the names. Yeah, I want to learn how to cook good food for my family.

(Sounds from within the classroom)

LINDY KERIN: This is a pilot for a program that's set to roll out in October.

The founder and CEO of OzHarvest, Ronni Kahn, says it'll be run from the organisation's commercial training kitchen in Sydney.

RONNI KAHN: We have over 2,000 food donors, all of whom have potential jobs. The hospitality industry is notoriously desperate for skilled labour. On the other, we've got over 500 agencies that have vulnerable people in it who have never had the opportunity, not because there's not courses to go to but it's support in order to get employment.

LINDY KERIN: How realistic is it that doing this program they will actually get a job in the hospitality industry?

RONNI KHAN: Look it's very realistic. If they finish the course and they show an interest - and our intention is to help them finish and support them along the way and encourage that interest - then we have, from our supporters, we've got hotels, and we've got businesses that have said they will give these kids their break.